Vietnam: Cheap chocolate and overpriced noodle soup

Yes I know… still running a bit (a lot) behind on my travel stories, but hey…no need for stress when you’re chilling in countries like this. We’ve been rushing through Vietnam and Philippines a bit and to see as much as possible from both countries we had no time to waste on chilling and relaxing. So last month has been quite active. Anyhow… hope y’all will enjoy my Vietnam adventure!

So my last post ended in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Ho Chi Minh City, also known as Saigon, was our first destination in Vietnam. We took a bus in Phnom Penh straight to the centre of Saigon. Often busses drop passengers off in the middle of nowhere so that their are kind of forced to take a tuk-tuk or a taxi to continue their journey but this time the bus stopped in the middle of the backpackers area and on 2 minute walking distance from our place. Because it was the 24th of December and we really wanted to cook ourselves a nice Christmas Eve dinner we booked a homestay on Airbnb.
The homestay was so nice and by far the nicest place we had stayed yet. Our host lady Thuy was a Vietnamese former English teacher. She was very friendly and we felt welcomed in her house immediately. The room was spacious, clean, had a private bathroom including a nice hot shower, a fridge and a plasma tv with American movie channels. I hadn’t watched any tv since a few months so it was nice to spend an evening in bed for a change with a tub of ice cream and a nice movie. We were free to use her tiny kitchen and all the kitchenware. So we went grocery shopping, cooked and enjoyed a nice homemade Christmas Eve dinner. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to cook but I had to be creative with the ingredients I was able to find in the supermarkets but as I said in previous posts, I really miss cooking so I couldn’t complain at all.

After dinner we went to walking street, a street filled with lights and street vendors. This is apparently how most Vietnamese celebrate Christmas: outside on the streets. The traffic in Vietnam (and especially in Saigon) is completely crazy. I had never seen so many scooters in my life. It was like there was some kind of scooter event going on where everybody was heading to, but no…this was the everyday traffic in this city. I noticed that unlike the other countries everybody wears a helmet in Vietnam. I also didn’t saw any young children or babies hanging on one arm of their parent while driving scooters. Crossing the street was already a challenge in the Asian countries we had been before Vietnam but crossing the street in Saigon was something completely different. You basically just have to start crossing the street dodging the cars and scooter that passing by on high speed and pray that you won’t get hit…something like that.

The Vietnam War is a big part of the Vietnamese history and scars of this war are still visible nowadays. The elderly, including our hostess Thuy, still remember everything they experienced during the war and Thuy shared a part of her memories with us. I already noticed that it wasn’t easy for Thuy to talk to us about it, which made me even more curious. So the next day we went to the Cuchi Tunnels, an underground labyrinth that the Vietnamese guerilla soldiers dug to protect themselves during the war. Our tour guide’s, John Wayne, family fought as guerrilla soldiers during the war so he told us his story with a lot of passion, which is apparently completely different from the American version of that war. To hear the story from someone who knows the actual facts and could tell us about it in his own way and words was very impressive. I hated history at school but learning about the world history like this makes it so much more interesting. They kept old guns from the war, which were used by the guerrilla soldiers for visitors to shoot with. So we chose a M30 to shoot with. It was my first time shooting ever and I feel a bit ashamed to say that I liked it. Weapons are horrible things and don’t contribute in creating a better world but it gave me some kind of adrenaline and a feeling of excitement. After the Cuchi tunnels we went to visit the War Museum, also very impressive. After learning more about the horrible past of Cambodia, hearing and seeing this part of the Vietnamese history broke my heart again and it’s really hard to imagine that all of that happened in the streets where I was walking.

When you walk through the park in Saigon you will most likely run in to a group of University students that are looking for foreigners to have a conversation with to improve their English. I can’t imagine myself doing anything like that on my own initiative, especially at that age. So it really shows how motivated these youngsters are in achieving something in the future because most of them dreamt of a career or master study abroad. It was quite funny to talk with them. They were all so curious about our lives and asked us everything they could come up with. Some things we told them sounded so new and strange to them like the fact we use our tongue while kissing in Europe was something they could hardly believe and sounded very funny to them.
Saigon is a lovely city and I could’ve spent some more time there easily. The people are very friendly and most important: the chocolate is super cheap compared to the other countries we’ve been. But we had to say goodbye and went off to relax at the beach for a few days at Mui Ne.

We arrived at Mui Ne early in the morning. The sun had not yet risen and we had no idea where we were and where to go. There was a minivan at the bus office that dropped passengers off at their nearby hotels but since the place we booked was so far out of town the driver couldn’t drop us off. He dropped us at a local bus stop instead where we could wait for the sun to rise and catch a cheap bus. After waiting 5 minutes a car stopped in front of us and the driver offered us a free ride to our hotel.
At the hotel the guy at the reception walked us to our accommodation. Even though it was still dark outside the place looked perfect…a little tent right on the beach, the sea 30 meter in front of the entrance of the tent and a swing in front of it as well. A bit sandy but the perfect place to relax for a few days and doing nothing more than read a book and drink a cocktail so that’s what we did for a few days. The hotel itself was huge and had a lot of space to lounge: mattresses, couches or Fat Boys where we usually continued our sleep from 7 AM because the tent turned into a sauna as soon as the sun showed his smile. It also had a pool table that we enjoyed. In the afternoon the beach filled itself with kite surfers. It looked so nice that I would try it sometime myself during this trip. Mui Ne is literally a place to relax, especially the place we stayed at.

After a few days of relaxing we took the bus to Hoi-An where we wanted to spend New Years Eve. As in Ho Chi Minh we booked a homestay but at this place the owners of the house unfortunately didn’t really interact with us like Thuy did. We took the bicycles that were free to use to explore the city. All nice restaurants and bars were supposed to be in the old part of town but when we wanted to enter we had to pay an entrance fee just to enter a few streets full of souvenir shops. It sounded ridiculous to us so we decided not to enter. Hoi-An is located next to the shore so in the evening we took our Asian sized bicycles (way too small for our European body heights) on the hunt for food. Because we had spent a little bit too much over Christmas we decided to take it easy for a few days to get back on our budget so cheap local food was what we were looking for. Unfortunately there was only tourist priced seafood to find close to the beach. Finally we found a little local place where they had Pho (Vietnamese noodle soup that you can find on almost every corner of every street). Hungry, tired and annoyed by all the over priced food we came across so far we went in. They wanted to charge us 40.000 Dong for a bowl of soup while we knew (and they knew as well of course) that a bowl of Pho doesn’t cost more than 25.000 Dong. So kind of pissed of about the fact that they tried to rip us of (for the millionth time) we continued our search. At the next Pho place we crossed a bowl cost 25.000 Dong so finally we found food that fitted our budget! This might sound super cheap and greedy (the difference of 15.000 Dong is about €0,62) but after travelling 3,5 months in Asia being ripped off, tricked and robbed you just get tired of paying more than you actually should. And if you think about the fact that food and accommodation could only cost a few Euros, every cent you save is worth a lot more than in Europe.
Since there wasn’t a lot of excitement going on in Hoi-An, we decided to look for another city to spend New Years Eve. We weren’t sure if Danang or Hué would be the best choice but we finally decided to catch the bus to Hué.

I read that it was winter in the North of Vietnam in December so that the weather could get quite cold compared to the South of the country. It was true: compared to the places we’ve been so far Hué was so cold. I believe it was about 18 degrees. I didn’t mind that at all. The cool weather was so nice for a change and gave me more of a December feeling than I had before. We weren’t really sure if there was a lot to do for New Years Eve so we just bought a bottle of vodka and started drinking at the hotel. After midnight we went outside on the hunt for a party, bar or any other place to celebrate the New Year. We were walking around for a bit and started to realize that there wasn’t much going on till we ran into a couple of tuk-tuk drivers sitting on the corner of the street drinking beer. They invited us to join them and since there weren’t a lot of other options we thought: why not… After some Vietnamese beer and weird conversations we got hungry and continued the hunt. We already gave up on finding a party and changed our goal into finding food. The streets were really deserted so we were so happy when we found a little almost abandoned noodle soup stall. After a few minutes it started to rain so there we were…under an umbrella in the rain and the cold, eating noodle soup on New Years Eve. I must admit I have had more spectacular New Year Eves but it was an unexpected and funny night and the most important thing was that we were together. Our time in Vietnam flew by so quickly so the next day we already had to leave to Cat Ba Island.

We took a night bus to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam and there we transferred to another bus and took a boat after to get to the island. In the bus I found out I was missing money for the second time during this trip. In Laos I already found out somebody stole 100 dollar out of my bag in the hotel room and this time it was 80 dollar even though I thought I had been more careful since the last time. It really sucked, but fortunately it wasn’t the end of the world.
Other than the islands we have been so far, Cat Ba isn’t very tropical but equally breath taking and impressive. Halong Bay is the main attraction around the island. In this Unesco World Heritage Site you’ll find over 3000 small limestone islands that rise up from the sea. We decided to book a boat tour to get around the different bays around the island. The scenery was amazing and it’s hard to describe how lovely it all looked. We sailed around the bays, visited Monkey Island and made stops every now and then to swim or to kayak around and through the small islands. Because we didn’t had a lot of time we skipped most of Cat Ba Island itself, which means we definitely have to come back sometime.

Before leaving Vietnam we had a full day to spend in the capital. Hanoi isn’t really an exciting city. I definitely prefer Saigon as a big city. We spend the day walking around before heading to the airport to head to the Philippines. I couldn’t wait to get to sunbathe on the white sand beaches and snorkel in the turquoise waters. We hadn’t seen a lot of tropical looking islands or Bounty beaches yet and the islands of the Philippines were suppose to be even more breathtaking than Koh Rong island in Cambodia. So even though I loved Vietnam and spending only 15 days in this amazing country is way to short, I was more than ready for the Philippines!